If you were around in the early 2000s in the United States of America, you might have seen the anime TV series Cyborg 009 on Cartoon Network, or seen the DVD releases of the same, or read the translation of the original 1960s manga by Shotaro Ishinomori. If so, you’ll be familiar with the basic premise: nine people of different ages and nationalities from around the world were kidnapped and turned into cyborgs by the villainous Black Ghost organization, with the intent of turning them into weapons of war. The titular Cyborg 009 is the protagonist Joe Shimamura, a young guy from Japan with a delinquent past. He and the others escape with the help of scientist Dr. Isaac Gilmore, and work together for peace instead — fighting various plots in their red uniforms and iconic long yellow scarves which, like superhero capes, don’t seem to get in the way. It’s an action show with fights and solving episodic problems, sometimes with philosophical and religious themes.
Several years later, the trailer for a sophisticated movie reboot, 009 Re:Cyborg, was revealed. The premise is that the cyborg team had disbanded and moved on to separate lives, with 009 having forgotten his superhero past entirely — but now there is a new threat and the group needs to reassemble. The visuals and soundtrack looked promising. The plot gets bogged down early on in various weird tangents — not always weird in a good way — while the ending feels rushed and doesn’t really resolve what was being set up, leaving some inconsistencies hanging and sometimes undermining its own themes. But the plot twists leave some food for thought. At any rate, this is a movie you watch for the beautiful fight scenes and gorgeous scenery and great action. The animation is CGI, but it is designed to have a traditional hand-drawn look with cell shading.
Kenji Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex) wrote and directed the film, based on the original work of the late Ishinomori (Kamen Rider, Super Sentai).
I like this trailer for briefly introducing all nine of the cyborgs:
One criticism of the film was that it was hard to get into for people not already familiar with the franchise, so here are the 00 cyborg characters in a list:
Cyborg 001: Ivan Whiskey, an infant from Russia, with various mental powers. Voiced by Sakiko Tamagawa and Stephanie Sheh.
Cyborg 002: Jet Link, a former delinquent from New York City, USA, with jet flight and speed. The brash rival counterpart to 009. Voiced by Daisuke Ono and Marc Diraison.
Cyborg 003: Francoise Arnoul, a young ballerina from France, with enhanced sensory abilities. The only female team member, and love interest to 009. Voiced by Chiwa Saito and Erin Fitzgerald.
Cyborg 004: Albert Heinrich, a man from East Berlin, Germany, with weaponry built into his body including the ability to shoot from his fingertips. Voiced by Toru Okawa and Dave B. Mitchell.
Cyborg 005: Geronimo Jr., a man from southwestern USA and a Native American, with enhanced strength. Voiced by Teruyuki Tanzawa and Patrick Seitz.
Cyborg 006: Chang Changku, a farmer and cook from China, with the power to breathe fire. Voiced by Taro Masuoka and Michael Sorich.
Cyborg 007: Great Britain, a former actor from the United Kingdom, with shapeshifting powers. Voiced by Hiroyuki Yoshino and John White.
Cyborg 008: Pyunma, a man from Kenya with previous combat experience and the ability to breathe underwater. Voiced by Noriaki Sugiyama and Marcus Griffin.
Cyborg 009: Joe Shimamura, the protagonist and a former delinquent from Japan, with super speed plus other abilities that make him the team’s leader and champion. Voiced by Mamoru Miyano and Jason Griffith.
And the team’s human mentor, the old scientist Dr. Isaac Gilmore from Russia. Voiced by Nobuyuki Katsube and George C. Cole.
Those are a lot of main characters. The 2012 film is not long enough to give them all justice, focusing on just a few of them while others have barely any screen time. However, the animation does a good job of letting each character shine with their unique abilities even if only for a little while.
To understand the plot and themes of the 2012 movie, it helps to understand the themes and context of the original series.
Cyborg 009: The Original Context (1964-2002)
The original Cyborg 009 manga was created in the context of mid-20th Century era. After the horrors of two world wars, the atom bomb, and the possibility of total nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War, there was a desire for cooperation amongst nations and finding ways to settle disputes peacefully. The forces of freedom and democracy needed to stand together, overcome racism and intolerance, and unite for the brotherhood of mankind. There was a feeling of optimism and progress, but new technology and advanced weaponry also brought along trepidation for the sheer amount of destruction and human suffering that was possible if countries decided to escalate conflicts. Ishinomori’s initial final story arc (before deciding to continue with more after all) ended with wishing on a shooting star for world peace.
Given these forward-thinking themes, some of the original cyborg character designs were jarring, to say the least. In the original manga — as I recall from an introduction or forward or somewhere — the author’s intent was to be inclusive and show a story where people with different nationalities and ethnic backgrounds could unite for a cause. On the other hand, Japanese comics and animation at the time sometimes took visual inspiration from old pre-1950 American cartoons… so the original Cyborg 009 and its earlier television adaptations (the first in 1968, the second in 1979-1980) passed on some very racist tropes in their character designs, especially with 008. This was toned down for the 2001 series, and the 2012 film was a complete visual reboot making everyone look more realistic in general.
Prior to his death in 1998, Ishinomori himself was planning to change the character designs while working on a final ending for the series, according to this article by The Artifice. In the late 1960s or early 1970s, the manga was intended to end in with 009 and 002 sacrificing themselves in the sky — but after fan outcry, Ishinomori continued the story after all, having the two friendly rivals survive for further adventures. Before he passed away, he was planning another idea for a final arc “God’s War” with some themes that ended up being used for the 2012 film.
Cyborgs in a Post-9/11 World
The 2012 reboot film not only has more realistic character designs, but the tone is more serious and less cartoonish overall. For example, the shapeshifting 007 “Great Britain” character, who was a child-friendly goofy comic relief in the old television series, is now a debonair secret agent who kills rival spies in cold blood.
Oh, yeah, so after the 00 cyborg team disbanded, 007 and 002 are professional intelligence agents now. Jet Link is all grown up working for the USA’s NSA, while Great Britain is working for the UK’s SIS, and they meet at a bar to talk about the latest situation. People around the world are committing suicide bombings, taking down skyscrapers and causing mass death and destruction on the apparent orders of “His Voice.” They have little in common with each other, except blowing themselves up for “His Voice” and wanting mankind to start anew. Other people don’t commit violence against others, but their minds are hijacked — they go crazy from religious visions and self-injure or walk into traffic. Even the 00 Cyborgs are not immune.
Joe himself, who has lost his cyborg memories and lives as an ordinary high school student, has blank possessed eyes at the beginning of the movie and feels compelled to blow up a building. If you can’t trust the main character, who can you trust? What’s gotten into him and other people attempting destruction all over the world?
Once again, the story has a contemporary context: the September 11, 2001 attack destroying New York City’s World Trade Center was carried out by terrorists for the specific political goals of Osama Bin Laden, but it became trendy to blame religion in general for all the world’s problems, and none of the world’s progress. In these extremely-online circles, the narrative was we could have had the 20th Century dream of world peace if only people weren’t so backward and superstitious.
In one exposition scene, the cyborg team is discussing these attacks, plus sightings of angel skeleton fossils that are recent but have also always been around to inspire some of history’s worst events. They theorize that man created God, so to speak, and “His Voice” is an idea in the collective unconscious. The attacks on skyscrapers are man retaliating against man for man’s greed and corruption.
There was another exposition scene that had me thinking WTF. Instead of the original series’ Black Ghost organization, which was completely fictional and not based on any real-world entities, institutions, or nationalities that I could tell, the apparent villain of 009 Re:Cyborg is Samuel Capital, a private investment fund seeking to profit from the military-industrial complex — sounds normal so far, and in line with the original manga where the first chapter was titled “Merchants of Death.”
But then it’s also thrown in there that Samuel Capital is connected to Israel’s Ministry of Defense, and they are controlling the United States Congress, and they are out to destabilize the whole world by orchestrating the bombings, and they are involved in an illegal project to desecrate the corpses of fallen U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians by turning them into cyborg zombies to carry out the bombings… Uh… I’m pretty sure this crosses the line into anti-Semitism, and it’s offensive on multiple levels. For a franchise intending to promote tolerance and minority rights, it’s a very self-defeating narrative choice that the world domination financier villains are insinuated to be religious Jews. Yet, this conspiracy turns out to be barely relevant to the rest of the movie — unless you really wanted the backstory of the faceless robotic minions — so I’m not sure what the point even was.
Like in The Matrix: Reloaded, this film separates the relatively weak exposition scenes of standing and talking, from the action scenes which continue to be excellent. I don’t often put “beautiful” and “fight scene” together, but it describes the artistry of Cyborg 009 and Cyborg 002 confronting each other over the sea during an attempt to stop a nuclear attack on Dubai.
*Here Be Spoilers*
The conspiracy subplot turns out to be just one layer, as it later appears that Samuel Capital is taking direction from “His Voice” which is real, and ordering people to carry out these mass terroristic acts. However, after failing to save Dubai from total nuclear annihilation, Joe gets an inspirational pep talk from his high school girlfriend that God does not give people burdens they cannot overcome.
Meanwhile, the team takes out the rest of the missiles — except for one, which Joe goes after in space with some help from Jet in a callback to the manga’s first intended ending.
Riding through space on the remaining missile, Joe begs “His Voice” to withhold judgment of humanity:
“It’s true, people can be foolish. In groups, we easily get corrupted by some collective mind. One that we can’t seem to resist. We aren’t perfect, but that means we also have so much potential. We’ve done terrible things together, but we can do great together as well. That’s what makes us worth it! Are you really going to crush the hopes of all the people who’ve risked everything, risked their lives, trying to answer your call to save this world? How can you look down on all that’s good about us, and destroy us anyway?! Give me an answer — God!!!”
Joe’s monologue is interesting for its similarity to Old Testament laments like you might find in Job, Psalms, Lamentations obviously, and other books of the Hebrew Bible where the speaker is emotionally open with God and wanting answers and begging for relief from the spectre of destruction. Of course, there is a significant difference in that Joe argues humanity has earned mercy with their good intentions, whereas the Old Testament writers were more like “I know we’ve been sinful and disobedient and corrupt, but please have mercy on us anyway.”12
(Kind of an odd choice in this movie to insinuate blame on some USA / Israeli conspiracy for the whole world’s suffering and instability, only to appropriate Hebrew culture in this later scene here, but whatever.)
Being aware of Joe’s heroic sacrifice, Francois suddenly develops a new ability: the power of a praying woman…
…and just like that, Joe and the other team members — including the ones who followed “His Voice” to their apparent deaths — all show up alive and at peace in what looks like Italy, where they inexplicably have the ability to walk on water now. The movie leaves it vague as to what this place really is and how everyone got there. However, it is implied to have something to do with Francois’ wish.
The last minute plot twist on the nature of “His Voice” is that different people hear God in different ways — some hear calls for destruction, while others hear calls for heroism and peace, with Joe being the latter. It kinda / sorta reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s themes in Till We Have Faces, where the gods’ intentions appear murky because humans deceive themselves about their own intentions.
But in this film, it doesn’t really work due to the plot holes it leaves, and a failure of the “show don’t tell” rule… if humanity is fundamentally well-intentioned, then why was Joe the only character to eventually hear God correctly, instead of being compelled to mass-murder? How were other intelligent and heroic characters driven to, at bare minimum, pointless delusions and self-harm? For the majority of the movie, it was shown that characters who had heard “His Voice” were possessed by it and had their minds hijacked — so did they actually have a choice to do good or evil the entire time? If they had a choice the whole time, then what radicalized nearly all of them to hear a call for destruction instead of a call for peace?
This movie’s themes bring up a lot of interesting discussion points. I’m not sure what ultimate worldview the film is aiming at — it goes for lots of exposition and breadth and the expense of depth and consistency. But 009 Re:Cyborg is a great ride, best seen for its artistic and technical excellence.
For one example, compare the similarities to Psalm 14 (NIV) attributed to King David:
1 The fool says in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
there is no one who does good.2 The LORD looks down from heaven
on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
any who seek God.
3 All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.4 Do all these evildoers know nothing?
They devour my people as though eating bread;
they never call on the LORD.
5 But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
for God is present in the company of the righteous.
6 You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
but the LORD is their refuge.7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
When the LORD restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
Another example, Lamentations 5:15-22 (NIV):
15 Joy is gone from our hearts;
our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17 Because of this our hearts are faint,
because of these things our eyes grow dim
18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate,
with jackals prowling over it.19 You, LORD, reign forever;
your throne endures from generation to generation.
20 Why do you always forget us?
Why do you forsake us so long?
21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return;
renew our days as of old
22 unless you have utterly rejected us
and are angry with us beyond measure.